I met a Greek guy when I visited Mount Athos last year who had never used internet or a cell phone. He had a huge notebook in his backpack where he wrote down "all interesting and useful things". There were some clippings from magazines clued into that notebook too and bits of maps. The stuff he had there appeared completely random, like directions to a specific museum, its working hours and ticket price, who some Byzantine Emperor was married to, how some saint died, "names of nice songs", some train times, all kinds of stuff. That notebook was his biggest treasure, he would browse it when he had free time and would also pull it out when he wanted to share something with someone else. He once tore a bit out of it to share the info about some rural museum he thought I would have enjoyed visiting. I pulled my phone and just took a photo of that bit he tore out for me and told him that he can keep the original. That made him incredibly happy (his portable "internet" did not have to lose that valuable info) and he lovingly clued that bit back in. He loved music but it was not readily accessible to him like it is to us (Mount Athos is a very special place and life there did not change that much since 12th century, so no wifi or TVs around, cell phone reception is very patchy) and he treasured every time he could here a song he liked. He did not know the names of the singers and just referred to the songs as [closing his eyes] "it goes like this [singing a couple of lines]", and this is how he wrote them down too. He was really enthusiastic about suggesting great songs to me too. His top pick was "Did you ever hear this beautiful song [closes his eyes] "I am a woman in looooove!"". I just burst out laughing, I could not help it. He was a very smart guy with a very good English too. He also remembered enormous amount of stuff by heart in addition to his notebook. meeting the guy was an experience that made us realise how dramatically the world has changed in a very short period of time.
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